It’s a sad set of circumstances. If she had paid it back beforehand, as you say, or even if she had stepped down as leader but remained on the list as late as Monday, the issue would not have been so destructive for the Green Party.

As it stands, she has set an example by resigning that Bill English should consider. He made a false declaration in order to claim housing benefits as an MP & a Minister, and relied on obfuscation and friendly oversight to avoid Metiria’s fate. He should not be shielded from the accountability that Metiria has so admirably, if belatedly embraced.

Talking this over (with a journalist :)) we were pondering how media narratives get spun; and how maintaining control of the narrative is so hard.But it certainly can happen. Key was extremely talented at this; even when (Dirty Politics, but more esp the ponytail) the narrative got out of his control, he stuck to a line, stayed smiling, minimised what he could, 'moved on'. English has learnt from this; most of the party use the same tactics, though seldom as effectively.Andrew Little lost control of the narrative very quickly when he said he'd considered resigning. In a funny way, he got back some control by actually resigning, and nominating Jacinda. Metiria was unprepared - and (it's easy to say now :)) she should have been prepared - for the hard glare of the spotlight. I guess being ready for that means getting all the possible elements of the story lined up and waiting, even if they never come out. Some contingency plans, if things take a nasty turn. I have every sympathy for her, but still felt a sneaking suspicion the 'moral choice' was laid on a little thick (forced to lie 'to feed my baby' vs 'to pay the rent'). For all that, the harsh judgement and ready condemnation of so many Kiwis has been sobering. We've swallowed the BIG LIE: "hard work makes you wealthy; laziness and 'bad choices' make you poor." Now that's some "magical thinking".

Yeah, I still don’t get why Metiria has been hung out to dry over this but Bill English gets a free pass.

It’s not like nothing happened. Reporting on the story forced Key to close the loophole, revealed that other ministers were doing the same and moved the office of Auditor-General to investigate.

The AG concluded that English had not been entitled to the payments, but a full investigation wasn’t warranted because English had legal and Parliamentary Services advice that he was entitled, and because the system was being changed as a result.

Simon Wilson wrote a good piece yesterday (addressing the somewhat deficient Herald piece on the same topic) about how much difference being able to afford a lawyer makes.

The Bill English housing allowance thing has been raised (constantly) at https://thestandard.org.nz/no-way-back/; the surprise is that this time co-accused Wayne Mapp (MP 1996-2011) actually wrote a detailed explanation and rebuttal. It included the following lines: "Since he was the MP for Clutha Southland he has a house there (and presumably still does) and as a young MP he and his wife and young children lived there. But it became more convenient for them to shift to Wellington. He was advised that he could still claim the AS available to all MP who did not represent Wellington electorates."

But Mapp's version of events is denied by another commentator, who wrote: "Before he was selected as the national candidate Bill lived in Wellington with his large family as he was a treasury bureaucrat and the chair of the Hataitai branch of the national party to boot. I understand he left Dipton to go to boarding school in Wellington at around 13 yrs old. Followed by University at Otago and Victoria. Lets not play the game it was ‘more convienent’ to move from Dipton to Wellington- they never left Wellington in the first place. His kids had the schools in the capital and his wife had her GP practice there... The house in Dipton was his parents family home, while his brother Hamish took over the running of the family farm and had his own house. Once the parents died the the family homestead was cut out from the farm and passed to Bill English. But he essentially never made it his family residence".

I've caught myself out in precisely this manner several times in recent years. Memory becomes selective. Seems to be a natural process. Quite embarrassing to discover one has remembered only one key facet of a situation when that situation was defined by several such facets - even when the discovery is private, no need to confess to anyone - when you've had a reliable long-term memory all your life. Much of her media critique has been driven by empathy deficit.

A respectful and comprehensive piece Russell. Tangentially: a textbook example of how readily English as a language lends itself to relitigation of the past.

There are also some Green Party staff furious at how this has gone down. How, they ask, was this not thought through? How could this not have been signed off by the whole Green caucus? They feel let down

I had a conversation with a right-winger on the day or day after the AGM and discussion naturally turned to “what about the flatmates?”. As many who’ve been on benefits know; the system is designed to hold one accountable to every little detail – in spite of the complexity of life. So I’ve had difficulty wrapping my head around this aspect of things given that ideally one expects the advisors to be prepared for every contingency, and failing that being at least be a couple of moves ahead of the game. What happened?

1. Bill English must have known that he and his family did not live in Southland. But the system allowed him to pretend that they did, and he took advantage of that.2. He got away with it by arguing that his lawyers had told him it was OK.3. When he was found out, the system continued to protect him.

It appears she involved her family in this without discussing it with them first. Now she claims to be quiting to protect them but it looks more like she's going to protect herself from her family.

I have no idea about Metiria's family, and I'm personally fortunate to have a great extended family.

But re the anonymous source, I also know good people with extensive extended family, some of whom are screwed up and whom you'd hide from in the supermarket if you met them, rather than risk encountering them. Granted this could have been a legitimate gripe, or just a misunderstanding about the times so long ago, but without further information on the source I'd take it with a grain of salt. The mere fact that someone's related to Metiria doesn't automatically mean they're trustworthy when talking about her, but I totally get it if she didn't want this to step up to a whole new level where she was having a messy family argument in front of the public.

I totally get it if she didn't want this to step up to a whole new level where she was having a messy family argument in front of the public.

That was my thought. She was going to end up being forced to either accept whatever rumours media chose to publish and hope that the source eventually made themselves so untrustworthy the stories stopped (how long would that take?), or attack the source. She'd only have to do the latter once to look like a complete arsehole, and the story after that would be anonymous for very obvious reasons.

One other possibility is that the father didn't want to admit to his whanau that he wasn't paying/couldn't pay, so he told those people that he was helping her. Whether he was or not, it's vanishingly unlikely that either of them would be able to prove it 20 years later. I've also talked to men who think "$50 or $100 every now and then" is a generous level of child support. Sure it helps, just like men help by washing the dishes sometimes. You don't want to litigate that one either :)

As many who’ve been on benefits know; the system is designed to hold one accountable to every little detail

In theory it's just as bad for those not on benefits, the complexity of what counts as income, which bond has to be deposited where, who exactly is living in the house (and who has to be told that), what happens when people don't pay but promise to pay in the future, all that stuff is a nightmare if you try to "do the right thing".

If you want to go down a bureaucratic rabbit hole never to be seen again, just sit down and work out where the bond goes in a rented share house. Bob and Sam sign the lease an pay bond, which goes to the official bond people. Chris moves in to one room, paying bond to Bob and Sam. It's likely that has to be reported to the property manager and the tax office, but what about Chris's bond - does that go to the bond officials? Or does it "replace" some of the bond Sam and Bob paid? But over summer Chris takes off and sub-lets their room to Michel, who pays a couple of weeks rent as a deposit/bond, rather than the full four week bond because they're only living there for a month. What, exactly, is supposed to be done with that money?

You can keep playing this game with everything from rent to utility bills to food kitty. It gets much more exciting when someone pays rent late and the delays crosses the end of financial year. But it is easy to spend hundreds of hours researching and dealing with bureaucrats, then even more time trying to untangle things when they disagree with you or each other.

To make things even more fun, own the house and rent out rooms. Now you're the landlord *and* a housemate, so you're legally liable for more things and the finances get significantly more complex if you want to do the right thing.

Or you can just do what everyone else does, pocket the money and STFU.